Huzefah Haroon

Huzefah Haroon is an architect currently living in Karachi, Pakistan. She founded her practice, Anomaly Lab, as a means to understand the meaning behind making by hand and the importance of material exploration and craftsmanship within design. Her ongoing creative quest is to create experiences that are sensitively attuned to human and ecological being. Her current work researches the practices of Jugaad* within the South Asian region, asking how it can help us design with less. Her recent installation “Jugaar Gym” at the Lahore Design Summit 01 held in Lahore, Pakistan, was an exploration of creating spatial play through borrowed architectural elements and crafts.

Earlier this year, her practice completed their winning design for the international design-build competition Project Lari 2.0, organised by Chaal Chaal Agency, India, making a street cart for women in Ahmedabad, India.

Huzefah is currently an assistant professor at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. She co-authored a research paper titled, Inducing Eureka, presented at the Aga Khan University – Institute of Educational Development (AKU-IED), Karachi, Pakistan. 

* Source: Oxford Dictionary. Jugaad/Jugaar is a hindi/urdu word used to describe “a flexible approach to problem-solving that uses limited resources in an innovative way.”*

Video: Jugaar Gym installation by Anomaly Lab at the Lahore Design Summit 01, located at Sabeel Courtyard, Delhi Gate, Walled City of Lahore, Pakistan, the exhibition was held between 07th - 13th March 2024. Design Team: Asadullah, Huzefah Haroon, Sara Bhaty

Tinsae Tsegahun Mengistu

Tinsae Tsegahun Mengistu is an architect born and raised in Addis Ababa. She blends her passion for sustainable design, architecture, and a vibrant engagement with the arts.

A graduate of Addis Ababa University with a Bachelor's degree in Architecture, she continued her academic journey with a postgraduate focus on 3D printing architecture at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, emphasizing the use of Earth as a sustainable building material. Tinsae's commitment to environmental consciousness is further evident through her participation in the 2023's BASEhabitat International Summer School at the University of Arts Linz. Here, she delved into the intricacies of adobe + earth blocks, rammed earth, earth + fibre, and bamboo construction—exploring applications ranging from simple construction methods to larger scale applications in contemporary architecture.

Her focus extends beyond architectural innovation; Tinsae aims to research and utilize these materials within the context of Ethiopia's social architecture. By integrating organic elements into architectural designs, she strives to create spaces that not only reflect cultural heritage but also address the social needs of communities, fostering environments that promote well-being and inclusivity. Tinsae envisions contributing to Ethiopia's architectural landscape, addressing urgent needs in disaster resilience and sustainable development through innovative and eco-friendly designs.

Image 1: Tinsae’s Final year project on Transitional Disaster Relief Shelter in Somali, Ethiopia.

Image 2: 3D visualization showcasing final year project on Transitional Disaster Relief Shelter in Somali, Ethiopia.

Image 3: IAAC's 3D Printed  Earth Student  Housing Vision project featuring Marina Nassif, Tinsae Tsegahun Mengistu, Milad Mehdizadeh, and Huanyu Li.

Jon Haga Grov

Jon Haga Grov is an architect who studied at the Aarhus School of Architecture (2022). He takes a phenomenological approach to architecture, with a particular interest in tectonics and materiality, often expressed through studies and investigations of vernacular building traditions. Contextualised architecture that interacts with local surroundings and premises are important factors in his work. Within today's complex societal challenges, this can be expressed through use of waste materials, recycling and planning for extended lifespan in our built environment. His working methodology often involves physical experimentation and testing in a 1:1 scale, as well as trying to shorten the path between drawing and construction.

Jon has been interested in how people in his region for centuries have built in harsh climates and with limited resources, leading to distinct structures rooted in local traditions. He believes that now, perhaps more than ever, it is important that we build with and not against our surroundings, adapting to our local climates and using local resources in intelligent ways.

Coming to Indonesia, Jon is interested in practicing architecture as a universal language capable of adapting to and learning from new building cultures and traditions in collaboration with other architects, artists and craftsmen. 

Image 1: Column Pine Bricks

Image 2: Offcuts Pine Bricks

Image 3: Stool

Image 4: Model Wooden workshop

Elise Hoebeke

Elise Hoebeke is a contemporary jewellery artist who holds a BA and Master in Visual Arts – Jewellery Context from Sint Lucas Antwerp, where she currently teaches on the BA of Jewellery Design and Silversmithing programme.

Before finding her way into contemporary jewellery, Elise obtained a BA of Interior Design at LUCA School of Arts Gent (BE). As a jewellery artist she is interested in a world where space, object and jewellery come together.

Image 1:1.     Baguette or Brick?, 2022, Print

Image 2: 1.     Transmutation d’une brique: quatrième phase - installation, 2022, Brick (cutting, filing, sanding), 180 x 85 x 50 mm

Image 3: 1.     Transmutation d’une brique: troisième phase précieuse, 2022. Collaboration with Studio DO Red gemstone (cutting, filing, sanding), 180 x 85 x 50 mm

Image 4: 1.     Left: Duplicate, 2023. Rock-crystal, cut into new shape,125x36x30mm, Right: Brick mould: bottom and top, 2023. Steel moulds with Delft clay, 220x110x30mm

Yohanes Arya Duta

Yohanes Arya Duta is a trained industrial designer and independent researcher. He is an active contributor to community development projects in a number of rural areas of Indonesia. Arya’s design work is inspired by his research into local crafts traditions and implemented through many creative outlets and collaborative works. He designed a tableware set to present Indonesian craftsmanship through food diplomacy for the 2022 G20 sumit held in Bali, Indonesia.

Arya’s research into the material-culture of rattan in Jagoi Babang West Borneo was displayed at Borneo Cultures Museum Kuching, Malaysia. Currently, he is continuing his research archiving endangered rattan material species in relation to the practical knowledge of the Dayak Bidayuh tribe to conserve the community’s land tenure. Data from this research will be preserved at the British Museum open access repository under creative common license.

Breanne Johnson

Breanne Johnson is an artist and designer from the United States and Curaçao, who currently lives and works in Mexico City. She received her MFA in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2023, and a BFA in Visual Art and Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2017. She was the recipient of the Pophouse Design Fellowship in 2022, has been an artist in residence at Haystack Open Studio Residency and Chop Wood Carry Water Residency, attended Ox-Bow School of Art, and is currently working as a fabricator and studio assistant for Taller Matos, while also conducting her own place-based contextual research.

Breanne’s work centers around social furniture, objects and design infrastructures that aid or facilitate lo-fi avenues of social connection. Her projects range from a café in the back of her pickup truck to apartment bars to a kitchen in a suitcase, alongside ritualized furniture items. She uses the tools and visual language of architecture and design to create artworks that try to reckon with and respond to dominant cultural or interpersonal assumptions and ways of living.

Image 1: Trailer Lab. Photo: PD Rearick.

Image 2: Variable Shade Structure

Image 3: Pickup Café

Image 4: Suitcase Kitchen

Francisco Susmel

Francisco Susmel studied architecture at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He holds masters degree in Urban Economics. Francisco has almost 20 years of experience in community organising and project management in non-profit organisations, addressing challenges that affect vulnerable communities, disaster response, housing, land tenure and infrastructure. He has worked in Latin America and Africa, and since 2017, in Puerto Rico where he moved to lead an emergency housing project after hurricane Maria. Since 2018, he has been involved with La Maraña, a local non-profit focused on participatory design to improve and create the shared spaces communities imagine for themselves.

Ellie Birkhead

Ellie Birkhead is a designer, maker and facilitator living in Cornwall, England. Ellie uses the power of craft and creativity to bring about social change and to highlight often unseen or underappreciated connections surrounding skillfully made objects of use. She is passionate about learning and passing on hand skills to build confidence and a deeper understanding and appreciation for natural materials and crafted objects.

Ellie holds an MA in Social Design from the Design Academy Eindhoven and a BA in Design and Craft from the University of Brighton. Ellie’s MA project Building the Local examines the threat that globalisation poses to small-scale industry. The project considers local manufacturing to be an essential part of cultural identity and sense of place, and explores the values - aesthetic, social, ecological and financial - embedded in crafts-based industries and their interrelationships. These themes are manifested in the craft of brickmaking, one of the casualties of deindustrialisation in the Ellie’s home region of the Chiltern Hills, England. 

Ellie has crafted connections over the past decade in the world of making from grassroots creativity through to the luxury craft sector. She has worked for renowned furniture maker Gareth Neal, the artist and inventor Dominic Wilcox, designers Studio Glithero and the Heritage Crafts Association.

Images by Max Presky for Ellie’s project Building the local.